thomas4cinema

A rough bit of entertainment for those not faint of heart. I don’t remember how I came across it, but I was surprised that I had not heard of it before. Man crush and up-and-coming superstar Michael Fassbender co-starring in a cruel nightmare about a young couple meeting the wrong people during what was intended to be a romantic weekend at the lake. It took me a while to realize that this is not “Wolf Creek 2” – the atmosphere of isolation is about as overwhelming as it is in that unpleasant bit of Oz-Horror. More threatening, actually, because here our “heroes” stumble across a bunch of kids who don’t have more than bad teenager habits to begin with, who discover their own potential for evil while we are watching, and this is not a nice process to witness. The setup is simple and predictable, the execution of the story is intense – soon you realize that the regular rules of horror movies only partly apply, director James Watkins takes the genre away from teenage slasher movie and brings a form of realism in that may only be possible in a setting that geographically avoids prom nights and spring breaks. This is blunt, barren England, and it may look nice, but nice it ain’t… While I am a rather experienced consumer of horror movies and thrillers, there were plenty of moments when I had the urge to cringe and hide away – not in a Saw-Hostel splatter way of maximum gross-out, but because of the tense direction and inevitably unpleasant fate of some of the characters… a nice bit of nasty!

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/eden_lake/